King James I - Monopolies Seller

The English government was in financial turmoil when King James I discovered that he could make a tremendous amount of money by selling licenses for the exclusive public control of a product, a trade, or even a government service, like the inspection of tobacco or collection of customs. As one scholar reported, in the early seventeenth century a typical Englishman lived in a house built with monopoly bricks; heated by monopoly coal. His clothes are held up by monopoly belts, monopoly buttons, monopoly pins. He ate monopoly butter, monopoly currants, monopoly red herrings, monopoly salmon, and monopoly lobsters. The holders of monopolies had the exclusive right to sell these items and charged as much as people would pay for them.[i] Sound familiar?

Don’t forget that King James I was also responsible for the creation of the famous King James Version of the Bible, which is officially called the “Authorized Version.” Why did he want a new translation of the Bible? If his version was the “authorized” version, did the other translations become the “unauthorized” versions. Would that have given King James I a monopoly on the Bible too?

[i] The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism By Joyce Appleby; p. 40.

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